After he was elected the head of Right Cause — a Russian political party "once openly anti-Kremlin, but more recently the party has been led by loyal personalities" — Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov said he probably wouldn't publicly call bad-ass Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin out publicly.

"Let's ask an honest question: Do we have a multiparty system? Of course not," Mr. Prokhorov said, defining his goal as creating a party that could be part of such a system in Russia.

"We should have at least two parties," he said. "Now, there is one. Any political monopoly, and any other monopoly, spiritual, natural or economic, is our main opponent. It is in every schoolbook - a monopoly is the enemy of all development."